TGJB--
I see where you are quoted in this week\'s Thoroughbred Times (back page adv. for MINESHAFT and Lane\'s End).
\"What he is is the fastest of all time....\"
It does not say what the rest of the quote was, but I\'m assuming you meant in the last 20 years.
Joe B.
This is news to me, and I\'m investigating.
The quote was pulled from an interview with Steve Haskin that ran in Bloodhorse in early October. In the larger discussion I made the points that horses have gotten faster (more on that soon) and that we have been making figures for 21 years. In the ad (which I haven\'t seen) they evidently just used the sexy quote.
TGJB--
I figured that was what you said; regardless, it would be tough to imagine a better performance rating than a negative 5.
Joe B.
TGJB and Staff,
Congratulations, when the Blueblood establishment of Kentucky is referencing your work you have achieved success on two fronts:
1)You have been accepted by one of the toughest to penetrate "clicks" in the world.
2)Your work must be "damn good" or they would just ignore you.
Congrats and continued future success.
TGJB,
I am erally looking forward to your article about horses getting faster. Intergenerational comparisons of all sorts have always fascinated me.
I\'m sure you will have a very rational way of demonstrating your case.
However, if you don\'t mind, no matter how convincing you are, I\'m going to hold onto my gut feeling that Secretariat, Spectacular Bid, Seattle Slew, Affirmed, and Dr Fager are among the great horses of the past that at their peaks would have gotten the best of the Mineshaft of 2003 no matter what the numbers say. :-)
TGJB,
at 8f and up, looking at the aqu track records, seems as though horses have gotten slower. they must have run thousands of races at 8 and 9f since the records were set. did they change the layout of that track at some point?
I\'m actually sitting down to write this right now, and will work on it as I get a chance over the next couple of days. I was able to find things that related (some more directly than others) to the questions here (there are several). Michael raised one that I addressed a while back when I posted about the discussion I had with NYRA track superintendent Jerry Porcelli. I actually hope to have him review what I write before I post it, but the answer to that one is that not the configuration, but the track itself that has changed.
My guess is that a trip to the Keenland Library would yield an awful lot on this general subject.
As for the great horses CH mentioned-- if I remember correctly, Babe Ruth had at least one year where he hit more homers than any other TEAM did. Think he would lead the league in homers if he played today with the same body and skills he had then? And don\'t anybody say he would be a hundred years old...
Which doesn\'t mean he wasn\'t the greatest player of all time.
Babe Ruth\'s body wasn\'t any worse than Tony Gwynn\'s, and he seemed to be able to hit the ball pretty well. There have been any number of great, overweight hitters over the yrs. The last few yrs notwithstanding, hand eye coordination is at least as important as a steroid enhanced weight lifter\'s body. More important, the pitching \"talent\" nowadays is so diluted that an argument can be made that many clubs have two or more starters who wouldn\'t have made it to AAA during Babe\'s era. Babe faced much, much better pitching than today\'s sluggers do, though many say he still didn\'t have to face the best of his day, as they were relegated to the Negro leagues. Bottom Line: In most yrs today\'s hitters would be vying to complete the exacta if the Sultan was still around.
TGJB,
I actually agree with you completely. I have a soft spot for the great horses of the late 70s. (and Dr Fager in the 60s) :-)
I\'ve engaged in an endless number of debates about Ruth, Gehrig, Cobb, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Nicolas, Tiger etc...
However, I suspect the changes in most competitive human sports like boxing, baseball, golf, tennis, etc... are much more complex to analyze because there have been huge advances and changes in equipment, stadiums, courses and rules that impacted the game and the stats too.
Track and field is very clear though. People are faster.
Since there\'s almost no question at all there have been huge advances in human training, nutrition, etc.. since the 20s it\'s hard to argue with you about Ruth.
However, how about if we just go back to the time of Mays, Mantle, and Aaron which is more in line with the horses I mentioned? Then it\'s a little tougher (let\'s exclude steroids as a factor)
I guess there have been training and nutritional advances for horses in just the last 30 years, but I\'d still take Spectacular Bid as a 4YO over Mineshaft. :-)
TGJB,
my point is: sprinters might have improved a lot more than the routers, mainly because of the increased focus on speed in the breeding industry....
take a look at track records across the country; most 9 and 10f records were set at least a few years ago, while most sprint records were set recently. changing track conditions can\'t account for this......just something to look at before making a major adjustment to your entire database.
I was going to resist entering this fray and then TGJB and Mall had to go and bring up baseball.
This sort of debate is always amusing but typically a waste of time and I am afraid if you \"exclude steroids as a factor\" you may be missing the main point regarding what has changed in recent years both in human and equine sports.
Steroids and other drugs along with better nutrition and high-tech equipment and training, etc. are the major cause of improved performance in both.
Babe Ruth on Steroids and Human Growth hormone...I shudder at the thought...
\"Never let the fear of striking out get in your way\" - Babe Ruth (MLB career strikeout leader and arguably the greatest baseball player of all time).
Also not bad advice for playing the ponies...
Chris
Post Edited (11-11-03 00:16)
Chris is right and there are so many other factors at work besides the obvious fixation on the medicine cabinet.
Mall,
\"Babe faced much, much better pitching than today\'s sluggers do...\"
You\'re out on a limb here. Asides from steroids.
For one thing, Babe Ruth never had to face the flamethrowers of today in the late innings. That\'s a lot of at bats over 20 years. Sure he would have turned around Kyle Farnsworth a few times, but I wonder how many of the Babe\'s homers were hit late in games off of guys who would have been home sleeping today?
And just how mediocre were some of those white guys the Babe get to beat up on?
Tough call, but I\'d lean the other way and say the Babe would be very good but nowhere near as dominant in today\'s game. However, the Babe could distinguish himself by pitching in the rotation as well.
Comparing horses of different eras may be even more pointless. Let\'s imagine what Mineshaft\'s \"figures\" would look like if he ran on the same schedule as the greats of yesteryear. Could he pop a minus five if he carried 132 pounds (or more) every ten days? We\'ll never know.
HP
I\'ll throw my 2 cents worth in. I too am looking forward to TGJB\'s write-up.
My feeling is that today\'s sprinters are quicker due to the changes in breeding (a point well made by Michael D.) Not sure about the routers.
As for that MINESHAFT vs SPECTACULAR BID. I\'ll take the \'Bid if the race is in California; I\'ll take MINESHAFT at Belmont.
PS: I\'ll take SEATTLE SLEW up to a 1 1/4 against anyone anytime.
Good Luck,
Joe B.
If the medicine cabinet is playing even 1/10th of the role in racing that it is playing in professional and div 1 college sports we might as well pack it in.
Michael D.
That\'s an excellent insight/question about the improvement of sprinters vs. routers. IMO, that is definitely something worthy of study. I wish I came up with it. :-)
It is also something that TGJB should be able to get a very good grip on using his database.
When I brought up Spectacular Bid, Seattle Slew, Affirmed etc... I was partially thinking of qualities and individual performances that demonstrated things that IMO can\'t be captured on paper or with a number.
If you saw Seattle Slew vs. Exceller and Affirmed in the Jock Club Gold Cup you saw something that caused your head to shake in utter disbelief. When Seattle Slew started coming again against a horse of Exceller\'s quality and kick after setting that insane pace it was just so far beyond \"normal\" it made you breathless. He had reserves of stamina, heart, determination, and other intangibles that were mind boggling.
If you saw Affirmed gobble up a loose and very sharp Sensitive Prince in the final yards at Saratoga, your jaw just dropped.
If you saw Spectacular Bid at 4 setting track records with complete ease practically every time he stepped on the track and then saw that walkover in which he ran fast with the greatest of ease, it gave you chills.
Even if some of today\'s horses are running a bit faster because of drugs, training, nutrition etc... it just isn\'t the same thing.
When those great horses horses came out on the track at their peaks it was like Michael Jordan coming out for game 7. You just KNEW you were seeing something that went way beyond everything you could measure.
CH---
Well put. I\'ll add another two. #1 BOLD FORBES staggering in Belmont\'s long stretch trying a distance he had no business trying. But he found just that something that we cannot measure and held off McKenzie Bridge.
#2 FOREGO running down a loose Honest Pleasure under a boatload of weight....awesome.
As someone once said...\"classy horses are fast, but not all fast horses are classy.\"
Good Luck,
Joe B
Isn't this really a two part question that Brown and Co must explain.
1)Are horses really getting faster??
And if so,
2)Are the FIGURES getting faster than the horses are getting faster??
Post Edited (11-11-03 13:19)
sorry, tried to add a thought to that last post............. the one major sprint record i can think of off hand that is more than three or four years old is mr prospector at GP. my opinion is that mr prospector went on to change the entire complexion of the game through his genes.
Can\'t wait to see the article and the discussion that will arise from it. Here\'s a related article from Steven Roman\'s web site with \"Thoughts on the Decline of the Modern Thoroughbred.\"
I\'m still trying to figure which race Mineshaft ran a negative five on T-Graph in. I don\'t recall any absolutely overpowering performances. Though I\'m guessing it was the Woodward.
He was decent, but I really felt they dodged the stiffest competition in a year when the competition fell apart and really wasn\'t that stiff at all. The three year olds never developed sufficiently to challenge their elders and many top handicap horses came unglued or came down with infirmities by BC day. Others that were on the fence entered but really hadn\'t pointed to the race. In retrospect, although Mineshaft was only a decent horse he probably could have won the BC Classic. But one thing I\'m certain of is that his connections weren\'t real eager to run him 10 marks against horses like Candy Ride, Perfect Dread and Megadeath. They knew they\'d picked their spots to get him to the position he was in. (A good shot at a handicap championship with what was a decent horse.)
I could name about 40 horses from the last 15 years that would confirm his decent horse status.
\"Fastest Ever\"
lol
CtC
Theres been plenty of baseball players to play the game for a generation with less than perfect bodies. I won\'t be able to recall or locate it now but I once read that the soft body type was less prone to injury. I know its hard to believe.
However the Babe on Juice would have been a more overpowering phenomena than Frankel in Grade I\'s. The difference being the Babe would have come through in the World Series.
Ctc
Just read Roman\'s article about the \"decline\" of the breed:
http://www.chef-de-race.com/articles/thoroughbred_decline.htm
It was interesting. Roman\'s always attempts to reduce everything to graphs and numbers. Dosage being an example of that. I suppose T-Graph does to some extent as well, but these are flesh and blood animals you can\'t always reduce their performances to numbers. There are so many unquantifiable variables that impact those performances and consequently the number.
In 1999 two horses failed to qualify for the Kentucky Derby on Dosage. They finished first and second. I believe Monarchos was also outside of the Dosage range. I\'m sure there are others that I just can\'t remember right now. In the words of Nick Zito, who first blew dosage out of the water in 1991 with Strike the Gold,: \"Dosage?...That\'s Voodoo\".
What Doc Roman did in response to non dosage qualifying horses winning 10 mark races was to include a host of \"new age\" stallions in the \"Chef de Race\" categories, Alydar included. With this revision Strike the Gold \"qualified\" retrospectively. It use to be Dosage eliminated all but a few entries in the Derby. Modern dosage allows almost the entire Kentucky Derby field to \"qualify\" upon it. Now with Strike the Gold\'s sire, Alydar, Romans says he made a mistake and should have had him as a \"Chef\" and if he had, Strikey (Zito\'s pet name) would have qualified. Lets see: Alysheba, Easy Goer, Turkoman, Criminal Type. (I know theres others I can\'t remember.) Yeah, it appears Alydar should have been a Chef.
However, unless Roman\'s has modifed it Dosage has an inherent flaw. We don\'t race horses further than 10 marks anymore. We just don\'t do it. Oh, its done once in June, but thats it. All the stamina influences from the \"Professional\" and \"Solid\" Chef categories are passe. The Jockey Club Gold Cup use to be two miles, before it was a mile and a half, before it was 10 marks. The Super Derby use to be 10 marks. There has been an arguement for shortening the length of the three year old Classics. If the Professional and Solid horses are necessary for ascertaining both the \"Center of Distribution\" and the final dosage number how do we know when the stallion has Professional or Solid stamina attributes when modern race horses NEVER run far enough to test stamina at the distances those categories pertain to?
The important races are getting shorter and the number of career starts for horses is in decline. I once read the average number of career starts of the typical Mr. Prospector foal (One that actually made it to the races) was about 7.
Roman did a retrospective study to determne what range of dosage and center of distribution was necessary to include the Kentucky Derby winners of the last century, so to a certain extent Dosage\'s credibility rested upon previous statistics and not current application. But I think Roman\'s own Dosage qualifying system is evidence that the breed is in decline. It\'s reached a point that no one really knows what a stamina influence is and no one really knows (Roman\'s foremost among them) which horses will get 10 marks in May or 12 marks in June. Breeding and stamina have taken a back seat to tactical speed, shortened races and careers, and huge \"jump up\" efforts.
Roman\'s \"decline of the breed\" graphs are very nice. However, I\'m not sure that kind of study is any more relevant to breed decline than modern dosage is to getting 10 marks in May. Today more than ever it can be said that \"A good horse can come from anywhere\". As Empire Maker and Mineshaft leave the limelight, the more modern concern is \"how long will he last\"?
CtC
Roman\'s article, which I scanned quickly, seems to make its case based on anecdotal evidence (the opinion of 7 \"experts\", who pick the best horses of all time using criteria of their own choosing), and as such is of no use in any reality-based serious comparison.
I certainly agree with you about the flaws in \"Dosage\", and then some. I don\'t remember any in-depth discussion about this here before, but I could be wrong.
1-- The underlying premise of Dosage, paraphrasing, is this: a small number of horses (stallions) are responsible for \"shaping\" the breed, so they are the only ones worth taking into account when looking at a horse\'s pedigree. The premise is debatable on its own, the conclusion ridiculous. Every stallion in a pedigree contributes, and certainly a sire who is not a chef-de-race (more francophilia) has more genetic impact than a horse 3 generations back who is.
2-- As I said once on Post Time, most of those of us who had mothers would agree they had something to do with how we turned out. Dams are not taken into account in Dosage, and a geneticist will tell you they have impact equal to that of the sires. I could show you that when it comes to horse racing they actually have a lot more impact, but that\'s another conversation.
On that same Post Time we showed a 4 generation pedigree, then showed it again leaving only the horses who were measured for Dosage. There were only a couple of names left out of the 14 in the 3 previous generations.
3-- The choice of which stallions to use is subjective, as is the assignment of which category they belong in.
There is nothing wrong conceptually with the idea of coming up with something that gives you a \"genetic profile\" of a horse, as long as you realize it will only give you a general idea (even if excecuted perfectly it is in effect a broad average of what a lot of identical matings would produce, not a blueprint for an individual horse), and as long as the way you come up with the \"Dosage\" (for lack of a better word) is driven by accurate data, and measured correctly. Meaning, all the horses in a pedigree, in terms of the characteristics they pass on-- speed, ability to go long, etc.
Well, guess who is in position to do this.
I use pedigree to look for tendencies when advising on purchases of horses that have already run, and we took our first steps down the road of quantifying things with the Sire Profiles, which as far as I know were groundbreaking, followed by the Dam profiles. We\'ve been kicking the idea of a Thoro-Graph Dosage around for quite a while, but we might finally get to do it in the next few months-- the company is rolling along pretty well now, I am starting to have a little more free time, and it is just one of the innovations on the way. I will be interested in suggestions from the usual suspects (and others) on how to do the Dosage.
In the next few weeks we\'ll be rolling out a few things. First will be the figure based trainer profiles, which we sneak previewed on BC day. Second, we FINALLY got the rebate thing done-- we will be sending out an e-mail soon, and anyone interested should make sure we have a live e-mail address for them. At some point, hopefully before the winter is over, we also hope to finish off a very big and groundbreaking project-- a study of figure patterns that will enable TG players to use a look up table to see how, for example, a Spring 3 year old does off a pair of tops followed by an off race (%of new tops, return to top, etc., same as the trainer studies).
That oughtta keep everyone (including our programmer) busy for a while.
I pointed out Roman\'s dosage problems as a backdrop to his \"decline of the breed\" study. I think anyone reading him crtically would agree, he uses some interesting techniques to make his deductions.
I\'m in complete accord with the importance of the dam. I\'ve always believed that you could breed a steer to a good mare and get yourself a stakes winner. I think Olin Gentry indicated the importance of the dam in his breeding philosophy (Tesio\'s technique), which to paraphrase was: \"return to the sire the best blood of his dam\".
Essentially, my point is that modern breeding is such a crap shoot you have to be dizzy to pay 500,000 for a Storm Cat cover. (Thats what it was, I\'m not sure if it is that high now.) If you are going to utilize prospective advanced dosage to enhance your decisions upon the talented horses you detect I can see how that could be beneficial to a client. Dogwood, Team Valor, T-Graph...someone\'s going to find the pot o\' gold first. It might as well be you. :) I\'m sure you\'ll contract for a season to your recommended buys. ;) The part of your business that is most impressive to me is the \"typical developement patterns\" for specific sires. (I have utilized them from your red board room :) )It seems to me this new venture is the logical progression of development patterns.
Lets see can someone state what the following horses have in common?
Our Emblem
Maria\'s Mon
Silver Buck
Cormorant
Distorted Humor
At the Threshold
With honorable mention to
Harlan
A good horse can come from anywhere, especially when he\'s demonstrated the heart to run.
answer to the trivia question (besides the obvious answer):
they all have a D.I. below 4.0. in fact,five of the six have excellent distance pedigrees, with very low dosages.
OE: 3.76
MM: 2.33
SB: 1.55
Cor: 1.33
DH: 2.30
ATT: 1.40
as for dams not being represented adequately in the DI: why would you give equal weight to a mare that has only a few offspring to a sire that has thousands of offspring. the mare\'s entire family is included in the final figure. sure, if a mare with a low DI throws a few sprinters,it is necessary for the bettor to make a few mental adjustmants, but i do not think that is a very difficult think to do, and does not diminish the importance of the entire system.
as for paying half a buck for a breeding share in storm cat: only time will tell, but brilliant sires with second or third generation secretariat blood have taken over the breeding game. right now storm cat, AP Indy, and Gone West are the hot ones. i hold the opinion that the next secretariat is right around the corner, and i am about 90% sure that the horse will have secretariat blood. i think others in the industry have the same feeling, thus the huge price for the Storm cat share.
I wasn\'t aware that the horses I listed all \"qualified\" upon dosage, but my underlying belief is that \"dosage\" (I prefer to refer to it as pedigree scrutiny) is only relevent as a tool to measure how far a good running horse may run.
I thought Funny Cide had the pedigree to relish 12 marks at Belmont, even if he stays healthy we will probably never get to see him attempt 12 marks again. So did the distance do him in on his home track or did his form go south after running a couple of good races? If Distorted Humor gets a 12 furlong grass runner of note will he be considered a sire prone to infuse his get with stamina? Funny Cides subsequent poor form in the Haskell and Breeders Cup tends to indicate he went off form, but did he? Andy Beyer thinks Funny ran his Derby in the Belmont. Perhaps the Belmont was the best he could do. But when Distorted Humor has another Belmont starter will anyone consider if we saw the best 12 mark effort from Funny Cide? How can dosage weigh these subtle considerations?
The horses I listed all were nicely bred, moderately priced, but not popularly acclaimed stallions that accomplished something that Storm Cat has not and that is to sire a Kentucky Derby winner in the 90\'s or this century. That is excepting Harlan who woulda, coulda, shoulda joined that club as well.
Yes I am aware of Tabasco Cat.
CtC
>as for dams not being represented adequately in the DI: why would you give equal weight to a mare that has only a few offspring to a sire that has thousands of offspring.<
IMO that\'s exactly correct. Even though they have equal genetic impact, we do not have equal statistics upon which to base a conclusion.
Ergo the request for suggestions. Aside from the usual suspects, we know a very bright young guy with a degree in statistics and a serious interest in pedigrees who I\'m going to talk to about this-- as it happens his father was also the guy who wrote the Bloodhorse article that got milkshakes banned in Kentucky.
As Patrick Cunningham said in the atricle I quoted, about 6% of colts are used for breeding, versus about 53% of fillies. What this means in practice is that a mid level stallion is really at the 97th percentile of available males, where a midlevel filly is at the 77th percentile of females-- there is much less range among stallions than the mares they are bred to, with the biggest difference between a 25k stallion and a 2.5k stallion being the book of mares they cover. So we are going to try to find a way to deal with the mares somehow-- anything based purely on sires will be misleading.
the 53% stat makes the project very difficult. we know that 53% of female horses do not get to the races, so you will have a very small sample of female figs to go on, compared with the number of mares. i will go back and read my old Vuillier and Varola stuff (hopefully today), and see if i can think of some way to improve on their methodology by using actual running figures.
I\'m not sure I have a complete understanding of the goal. If I were going to try to use the female side for statistics, I would \"start\" by categorizing only those fillies for whom I have past performances and perhaps speed figures.
The horses used in the following example are simply my attempt to make a point. They are also going to date me. :-)
I would put horses like Dainty Dotsie, What A Summer, My Juliet, and Safey Kept in one category for example. These are more or less \"highest quality pure sprinters\". If I had a large sample of so called \"highest quality pure sprinters\", I might then want to break them down according to their own sire\'s characteristics and form sub-categories within that group.
I could then for example look at all the offspring of the \"highest quality pure sprinters\" sired by \"pure sprinters\" and form conclusions based on that sample.
That would certainly be more useful than looking at 2-3 offspring from a single filly.
The more stats I had, the more subcategories I could create. I might even consider incorporating multigenerational filly stats.
I\'m not sure how I would assign the proper weights between the sires and these grouped filly stats because the sire line stats would still probably be superior because they are direct. You may have to back into something like that with some type of regression analysis.
I have no formal education in statistics and am thinking out loud as I type this, but I can\'t see how you can get around grouping the fillies in some way if you want results you can analyze.
I look forward to the solution. I hope my 2 cents is worth at least that much. :-)
Post Edited (11-21-03 16:21)
Grouping by \"type\" doesn\'t address the issue of the genes being passed on in a particular pedigree, but that could certainly be a seperate study. I also don\'t know to what degree the figures of the dam herself will be of use, we will have to look at that. But it\'s been obvious when we looked at this that it is not a simple question, which is why we haven\'t done it already. Now that we have time we\'ll have a go at it, after talking to a number of people. Derby 1592, any thoughts?
By the way, we will obviously be looking at breeding \"nicks\" in conjunction with this.
>Grouping by \"type\" doesn\'t address the issue of the genes being passed on in a particular pedigree, but that could certainly be a seperate study.<
The groupings would at least have the potential to be similar genes. It would make the sample sizes larger - especially if they could be refined beyond racing characteristics down to the fillies own pedigree (sire).
Post Edited (11-24-03 00:05)